“Oi, Victor, Victor…whatre you still doing in bed? Wake up, youll sleep your whole life away if you keep this up. Look at him, will you? Still snoring…Victor, get up, or youll miss your chance at happiness!”
“Eleanor Margaret, for heavens sake, let me sleep!”
“Sleep? Youll have all the time in the world to sleep when youre retired.”
“Yeah, and Ill catch up in the afterlife too, wont I?”
“Not if you keep this up. Come on, up you get!”
Victor dragged himself to the mirror, bleary-eyed and dishevelled.
“Well?”
“Youre not even dressed! Go wash up, shave, make yourself presentable. Theres still time. Go on.”
“What time, Eleanor Margaret?”
“The right time.”
With a grumble, Victor shuffled to the bathroom, muttering under his breath. One wrong word, and hed get a slipper thrown at his headghost or not, she still had perfect aim. Bloody woman, he thought bitterly.
“Victor, did I ever tell you I can hear your thoughts sometimes? No? Well, now you know.” Eleanor Margaret settled into a cross-legged pose at the foot of his bed. “Side effect of the afterlife, I suppose. Now go on, wash up, brush your teethproperlyand dont forget to shave. You look like a vagrant.”
Arguing was pointless. Even in death, she was impossible.
His mother-in-law wasnt just any ghostshe was *his* ghost.
No, he wasnt mad. No, he hadnt hit the bottle too hard. One day, Eleanor Margaret had just… appeared.
After her funeral.
“I *do* hear them, you know,” she mused, gliding through the air. “Most of the time. How did my Lydia ever put up with you? Youre a relic, Victor. A proper dinosaur.”
Victor waved her off and trudged to the bathroom.
He and Lydia had divorced a year ago. The kids were grown, living their own lives. Lydia had snapped, called him a tyrant, said he stifled her growth as a woman, packed her bags, and slammed the door behind her.
Victor had stood there, stunned.
When he called, shed hissed that she wanted nothing to do with a “misogynistic throwback,” words hed never been called before.
And how was he supposed to stop being a “throwback”? He built houses for a living! Bloody ridiculous. Shed gotten it into her head, thanks to some life coach or other, that their marriage had been a prison. That hed shackled her to domestic drudgerycooking, cleaning, endless pots of stew.
Though, God, her stew was divine…
Victor nearly choked on his own saliva as a thought struck him. Half-shaved, he bolted into the hallway.
“Eleanor Margaret! Eleanor Margaret!”
“What in blazes are you shouting for?”
“Teach me how to make your stew. Please.”
“Oh, now he wants my secrets!”
“Whatre you going to do with it in the afterlife? Cook for the devil?”
“Ugh, youre impossible.”
“Fair enough… Lydias was always better anyway.”
“Excuse me? *I* taught her!”
“And yet she surpassed you.”
Eleanor Margaret flickered, indignant. It had taken her weeks to master holding objectsnow she could hurl a slipper with deadly precision. “You listen here, you ungrateful sod. What meat does Lydia use in her stew?”
“Beef, obviously.”
“Wrong! Its lamb!”
“Oh, and I suppose it has to be cooked in *that* pot, not this one?”
“Dont be daftof course its that one!”
By the time they finished, Victor had scribbled every instruction into a notebook. Clean-shaven and triumphant, he sat at the kitchen table, savouring the most heavenly stew hed ever tasted.
“Mum… youre a genius.”
“What?”
“This stew… its incredible.”
“And what about Lydias?”
“Pfft. Doesnt even compare. Waitare you crying? Can ghosts cry?”
“How should I know?” she sniffed. “Youre a right piece of work, Victor.”
“Here we go. Whatve I done now?”
“Nothing… you justugh! Called me mum, didnt you? Now Im blubbering like an idiot.”
“You *wanted* me to be happy.”
“Exactly! I was supposed to send you out with the bins at half-sixclean, shaved, looking respectable. Galina from next door wouldve been leaving at the same time. Youd have bumped into her, and then”
“And then what?”
Her spectral eyes darted. “Well… youd have… you know. And Id have been free to move on. Those were the terms.”
“Terms?”
“To make you happy!”
“So youve known this whole time?”
“Course I have.”
“Then why didnt you do it?”
She huffed. “Because you had to go and ruin it with your stew nonsense!”
“*I* ruined it? Youre the one haunting me!”
“Well, now Im stuck here until I fix it!”
“Happy? You think Id be happy with some stranger? I *am* happy! Im alive, breathing, and Ive got the best damned stew recipe in the world. And Ive got *you*making sure I dont starve or rot in my own filth. Im not lonely, Mum. Ive got you.”
“Oh, bugger off,” she wailed, vanishing into the wardrobe, her sobs echoing from within.
Victor sighed and got to cleaning.
“No, not like thatuse the other cloth, you muppet!”
***
Lydia hadnt slept well. Shed dreamt of her motheryoung, beautiful, reaching for her.
She tried to watch her life coach, *Esmond Marvelton*, but the video wouldnt load. When she called, a raspy voice snarled, “Who the hell rings at seven in the morning? You gone mad?”
She slammed the laptop shut. That wasnt Esmond. That was… some brute.
Restless, she drove to Victors flat. She didnt know whyjust that she *had* to go.
***
Victor and Eleanor Margaret were deep in a chess match, laughing like old friends.
“Youve lost the plot,” Lydia muttered, watching her ex-husband banter with thin air.
“Lydia! Mum, its your movecheckmate!”
Lydia swore the pieces moved on their own.
“You look well,” Victor said. “Mum says youve lost weight. Not eating? Fancy some stew? Mums recipe.”
“Victor… are you all right?”
“Never better. Shes promised to teach me her roast next.”
“Victor… your mums been dead a year.”
“Right. And shes been haunting me since.”
“Victor, love, whats happened to you?”
“Ask her something only you two would know.”
Lydia hesitated. “Mum… what secret did I tell you in Year Three?”
“That you fancied… *Victor*?”
Lydia sat down hard.
One question after anotherall answered perfectly.
“This cant be real… Mums *here*?”
Victor nodded. “Shes a ghost, love. Show yourself, Mum.”
For a fleeting second, Lydia saw herthen again, flickering.
“Shes fading,” Victor said. “She loves you. Wants you happy. Wants *us* happy. What does that mean, Eleanor Margaret? Waitwhere are you?”
“Mum!”
***
Victor woke with a gasp. Lydia jerked upright beside him.
“Victor?”
“Lydia… was that?”
“A dream,” he whispered.
“You dreamt Mum was a ghost?”
“Yeah. And youd left me for some life coach.”
“Victor!”
“Lydia!”
A fist hammered on the door.
“Enough lazing about! Lydia, stop filling your head with nonsensecoaches, quacks, all that rot. Had the strangest dreamhaunting Victor for a year. Up you get! Were going to the cottage. Plenty of work to knock some sense into you. And you, Victoryoure learning to cook. Just in case…”
***
“Victor… whyd you never call me Mum in thirty years of marriage?”
“Dunno… Mum.”
